Inspiration, ideas and information to help women build public speaking content, confidence and credibility. Denise Graveline is a Washington, DC-based speaker coach who has coached nearly 200 TEDMED and TEDx speakers--including one of 2016's most popular TED talks. She also has prepared speakers for presentations, testimony, and keynotes. She offers 1:1 coaching and group workshops in public speaking, presentation and media interview skills to both men and women.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

This week, Stephanie used a great analogy--how you see your progress when you're trying to lose weight--to describe her reaction to her public-speaking progress in our Step Up Your Speaking program. In week 12, to show her how far she's come, I put her contest entry from the summer alongside her current video demonstrating a message she created about facing her fear of speaking. In this week's video, she says, "When you're trying to lose weight and you're working out, and every day you're in the mirror, and you don't really notice it. But people come up to you every day to give you compliments on how great you're looking. To have those two videos side to side, it gave me a lot of joy to see that my work is paying off." It's just another demonstration of her growing skill set--and that, when you speak from the heart about something you know personally, you'll be far more eloquent, relaxed and effective, as she is in this video.

In the next-to-last week of our Step Up Your Speaking challenge, Stephanie reflects in the video above about her week 12 message and what she might do better, based on my feedback and that of other viewers. For video or for speaking with a lectern, she'll need to move her hands higher and into view for gestures to really be effective. She wants to pay attention to her visual "ums," those moments when she looks away and breaks eye contact so she can pause and think about what she wants to say--or remember it. And she's trying to speak more slowly.

Stephanie's put two issues on the table I want to address this week: Speaking speed, and how to take a short message and expand it into a longer talk. They're both important issues for you to consider when you're developing your speaking style and approach. Now it's my turn to come up with two videos to coach her on those topics! In the meantime, please leave your feedback and encouragement for her in the comments.